Private Kirkman

Private Charles Kirman Lincolnshire Regiment

After five months Kirman was again declared fit for active service and returned to serve on the Western Front, joining 2nd Bn. Lincolnshires, part of 8th Division. In May, unlike thousands of his comrades, Kirman was lucky to survive the bloody military fiasco, officially dignified as battle of Aubers Ridge. The 8th Division suffered so badly that aside from the assault on Bois Grenier in September, it was not deployed in any major offensives until mid-1916.

Shortly after 7.25 a.m. on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Somme offensive, the 2nd Lincolnshires, left their trenches, lined up and advanced towards the enemy positions. An hour and a half later, almost half the battalion were casualties, including Kirman, who had been wounded.

Details about the nature and seriousness of the injuries sustained by Kirman are unknown, nor is it known whether he remained in France or convalesced in the United Kingdom. But it is clear he was transferred to another battalion, for on 1 November 1916 he was reported as AWOL from 7th Lincolnshires, 17th (Northern) Division.

He was eventually arrested and returned to the battalion on 29 March 1917. Charged with having gone AWOL, Kirman was tried by Field General Court Martial on 17 June and sentenced to a year's imprisonment with hard labour. However, the sentence was subsequently suspended and on 5 July orders were issued for him to rejoin his battalion at the front near Arras.

On 26 July, Kirman's platoon was billetted in Railway Cutting, a position behind the front line, to the East of Blangy, after having spent two nights of an eighteen-day tour of duty, labouring as diggers for the Royal Engineers. When the platoon sergeant called the roll at 5.15 a.m., Kirman was missing.

After five days absence, Kirman, unarmed and dressed in clean fatigues, reported himself to a regimental policeman on duty at the road behind the military camp at Berneville, several kilometres west of Arras. Kirman identified himself and explained to the policeman that he had been absent from his battalion for six days. Kirman was promptly arrested, taken to the guardroom and subsequently escorted to Grimsby Camp at St. Nicolas, on the outskirts of Arras.

In the early evening of 15 August, Kirman and other soldiers in detention at Grimsby Camp were told that the following evening they were to be despatched for a sixteen day long spell in the front line

At 9 p.m. on 16 August, while being escorted with a pair of other detainees to use the latrines, Kirman gave his guards the slip and ran away.

Two days later, he surrendered himself to a military policeman in the Rue de Tribunal, Doullens, a small industrial town to the west of Arras. The policeman noted that Kirman was dressed in clean fatigues and equipped with a gas mask helmet but was not wearing identifying numerals or a cap badge.

Kirman was charged with two separate offences of desertion and tried by Field General Court Martial on 7 September. Kirman pleaded not guilty to both charges but as with the majority of the rank and file who were executed by the British Army during the First World War, he was unassisted by a defending officer.

The court assigned to try Kirman was presided over by Major R.P. Burnett MC, 8th Bn. South Staffordshire and the members consisted of Capt. L.W. Rowe, 10th Sherwood Foresters and Lt. J. Appleyard, Westmorland & Cumberland Regiment, attached to 2nd Border Regiment. They were advised in their deliberations by a Court Martial Officer, Capt. A.L. Kelly, King's Royal Rifle Corps, a qualified barrister. Kirman was prosecuted by his battalion adjutant, Lt. E.W. Mason.

On the first charge, prosecution witnesses briefly confirmed the relevant periods of absence. The defendant did not cross-examine any prosecution witnesses and when it came to his defence, Kirman called no witnesses.

Instead, according to the written transcript of the proceedings, he simply declared:

"I have been out abroad in India 7 yrs. and 4 months. I often suffered with malaria. I came out in 1914 with the Expeditionary Force. My nerves are now completely broken down. I suffer with pains in the head when I am in the line. Sometimes I don't know what I am doing."

Quizzed by the court, he added:

"I knew what I was doing when I left my Battalion. But my nerves were quite broken down. I have not reported sick for my nerves with this Battalion. I did so several times when I was with the 1st & 2nd Battalions. I came out of the 1st Batt. with the original Expeditionary Force & left it in November 1914. I left it wounded. I joined the 2nd Battalion in April 1915. I left it wounded on July 1st 1916."

Evidence relating to the second charge was presented in pretty much the same way as had occurred with the first charge, and prosecution witnesses were not cross-examined about their testimony. In his own defence, Kirman again repeated:

"I have been out abroad in India seven years and four months. I often suffered with malaria there. I came out in Aug. 1914 to France. My nerves are completely broken down. I suffer with pains in the head when I am in line. Some times I don't know what I am doing.

Interrogated by the court about his final sentence, Kirman damned himself by conceding, "I knew what I was doing when I ran away outside the latrine."

After the court had deliberated about the second charge, they heard a report from Capt. H.J. Cotter MC, R.A.M.C., 7th Lincolnshires' Medical Officer. Cotter stated:

"I know the accused. His general health has been good. Accused has not reported sick in connection with his nerves to me. I have been with this Battalion for nine months."

Given the nature of Kirman's defence of his misconduct, it is more than regrettable that the court did not probe further about the nature or severity of the defendant's wounds or query Cotter's competency or record of dealing with other soldiers who had complained of battle stress.

What remains very disturbing is the court's evident disinclination to order that Kirman's mental state be appraised by a Medical Board. Even allowing for the limited contemporary medical understanding, long before September 1917, the incidence about the effects of battle stress was common enough.

All concerned with the trial, including the Court Martial Officer, had no excuse for failing to appreciate that what was termed "shell shock" amounted to more than an excuse for malingering.

Lt. Mason then informed the court that he personally had no knowledge of the defendant's service but disclosed Kirman's disciplinary record to the court. The latter revealed that with the obvious exception of his earlier court martial and suspended sentence of imprisonment, Kirman had otherwise been a well behaved soldier, exemplified by two good conduct awards.

The court considered its findings immediately after hearing each offence. It concluded that on the first charge, Kirman was not guilty of having deserted on 26 July but guilty of having gone absent without leave. For running away from the latrines on 16 August, the court found Kirman guilty of desertion and sentenced him to death.

When invited to summon character witnesses, Kirman produced none. Instead, he reminded the court of his injuries and the duration of his war service. The transcript of the trial noted that the defendant said:

"I was wounded at La Bassee in Nov. 1914 & again on July 1st 1916 at La Boiselle. I have been out 18 months this time & about 4 months the first time."

A note in the margin added, "Of which 5 months he was absent."

The process of confirmation was brief, for the proceedings of Kirman's trial appear to have by-passed the usual succession of ever more senior officers who were customarily invited to add their opinions. Instead, the dossier contains a scrappy note written by Lt. Colonel F.E. Metcalfe, the officer commanding 7th Lincolnshires, on 3 August. Of Kirman, Metcalfe reported:

"The conduct of this man from the date of promulgation and the suspension of sentence to date has not been at all satisfactory. He is now under arrest at the Bde. Depot awaiting my disposal on a charge of absenting himself from the Battn. whilst in RAILWAY CUTTING."

Metcalfe's perjorative remark about Kirman's "not at all satisfactory" behaviour is unsupported by any evidence and appears at odds with the latter's disciplinary record. Nor, by virtue of the time it was penned, does Metcalfe's report make reference to the second offence, the one which caused the court to sentence Kirman to death.

About the prosecution's circumstantial evidence in relation to the second offence, Captain O.F. Dowson, on behalf of the Deputy Judge Advocate General, commented:

"No evidence is given by anyone in the accused's unit that after running away on the night of 16th August he failed to return and remained absent; but I think his surrender on 18th August so far away as DOULLENS is, with the other circumstances proved, sufficient to support the conviction."

Kirman's plea about suffering an unsupportable mental trauma whenever he was in the front line, was ignored by Dowson. The officers of the court, possibly because they lacked adequate legal expertise, may be excused for not being sensitive or failing to grasp the point that Kirman was making in his defence. However, as legal luminaries of the Inner Temple, Kelly and Dowson had no excuse for failing to take full account of a defendant's motives in committing an offence.

The meticulous care of the anonymous author of the marginalia drawing attention to Kirman's earlier absence of five months could no less validly have have drawn the attention of his superiors to the fact that Kirman, presumably when he had regained his nervous composure, had voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities. The fact that any deserter gave himself up would not have been sufficient to avoid being executed, as had happened to many other deserters but the author's negative view certainly doomed Kirman.

On 19 September, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig's confirmatory signature sealed Kirman's fate and the sentence was promulgated two days later. At precisely 6.09 a.m. on 23 September, the execution of 32 year old Pte. Charles Kirman was carried at Ste. Catherine, Arras. The fatal ritual was supervised by by Capt. J.E. Holdsworth, Assistant Provost Marshal 17th Division.

The execution of a deserter who claimed his offence was due to battle trauma, variously expressed as "shellshock" or perhaps "feeling queer" or not "quite right" in the head occurred in about a fifth of the courts martial that ended with the defendant being shot.